The corporation also came under fire for its coverage of yesterday's events, with one section where Fearne Cotton and Paloma Faith discussed a Jubilee-themed sickbag being singled out for criticism.

But audience figures were high and director general Thompson told staff 68.5% of the public had watched the coverage at some point - which he described as "a stunning figure".

1

of

0

Share this slide:

An average audience of 10.3m people watching the pageant broadcast.

The audience for the Diamond Jubilee Concert peaked at 17m, making it the most-watched programme of the year, and Tuesday's carriage procession was seen by a peak of 7.4m.

In an email to staff, he wrote: "Our output has been impressive not only in its scale, but in its ambition, quality and outstanding journalism.

"By capturing the spectacle of the Thames pageant and yesterday's ceremonies alongside smaller local celebrations, we reflected reaction from up and down the country."

Mark Thompson: 'Proud of the coverage'

A BBC spokesman said it had received 2,425 complaints about the coverage while a former executive said it "tried too hard" to make its coverage of the river pageant "informal" and "inclusive".

Former Radio 4 controller Mark Damazer told the Today programme the BBC was "worried and nervous" about appearing too formal.

He said: "I don't think this is going to be the BBC's Bafta award-winning entry next year but all that went wrong was a very conscious attempt, I think, to make the whole event informal and, to use the modern idiom, inclusive and warm, and the BBC just probably tried too hard to do it."